Much of the magnificent 3,000-year-old temple of Ain Dara, with its mysterious and massive footprints and a structure that provides clues for understanding the biblical temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, has been destroyed in a Turkish airstrike. [...]

Photos and video from the Syrian Observatory and Hawar News confirm that more than half of the temple is gone, including many of the sculptures that ringed the site.
— National Geographic

"The temple, one of the largest and most extensively ancient excavated structures in Syria," National Geographic reports, "is famous for its intricate stone sculptures of lions and sphinxes, and for its similarities to Solomon’s Temple—the first Jewish temple in Jerusalem, said to have held... View full entry

The International Criminal Court (ICC) ruled on 17 August, that an Islamic extremist caused €2.7m in damages when he destroyed shrines in Timbuktu, Mali, in 2012. This is the first time that the ICC has made a ruling solely on cultural destruction, setting an important precedent. [...]

Islamic extremists used pickaxes and bulldozers to destroy nine mausoleums and the centuries-old door of the Sidi Yahya mosque, built during a golden age of Islam [...].
— theartnewspaper.com

By ruling that "the destruction of the protected buildings has caused the suffering of people throughout Mali and the international community," the International Criminal Court in The Hague acknowledged the demolition of cultural heritage as a war crime — potentially treating recent acts of... View full entry

Slated to open in 2018, the Memorial to Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama will seek to tell the truth. Six acres of land owned by the Equal Justice Initiative—the legal services nonprofit Stevenson founded in 1989—will memorialize the more than 4,000 victims of what Stevenson calls racial terror lynching in the American South between 1877 and 1950. A nearby museum will tell the history of slavery, lynching, segregation, and mass incarceration as a single narrative.
— Citylab

Designed by MASS Design Group—which has previously worked on the Kigali Genocide Memorial—the memorial stems from a comprehensive report on lynchings released in 2015 by the Equal Justice Initiative. The memorial will feature six-foot columns, each representing counties where lynchings took... View full entry

“You can argue that any sculpture is art in some way, but it’s a loose argument,” Schoonmaker said Tuesday. “I don’t know that these statues are worthy of preservation as art objects so much as historical objects – made to preserve a lost cause, a lost war. They weren’t made with great artistic intent, but with political intent. And intent matters in this case.”
— The New Observer

With the tragic events occurring in Charlottesville, much ink has been spilled over the topic of Confederate memorials: Should we keep them? Should we take them down? Is keeping them up a celebration of slavery and is taking them down erasing an important part of our past that we must face? With... View full entry

As many onlookers cheered Friday, a crane hoisted the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from the top of a monument in New Orleans.

It is the fourth, and final, Civil War-era landmark the city has removed since late April.The effort to remove New Orleans' monuments has been part of a nationwide debate over Confederate symbols, which some argue represent slavery and injustice and others say represent history and heritage.
— CNN

On Friday, the final Civil War-era landmark in New Orleans, a statue of the Confederate general Robert E. Lee, was taken down. This was the fourth, and final, Civil War monument that the city has removed since late April after voting in 2015 to remove the Confederate markers. Many have argued that... View full entry

Syrian government troops have retaken Palmyra from Islamic State forces, with help from Russian air support, the Syrian army said in a statement on Thursday. Politicians in Russian welcomed the news as a triumph, as widely reported by the state’s media, but few details have emerged about the condition of the ancient site, where Isil has previously wreaked large-scale destruction. [...]

Isil first took Palmyra in May 2015 and the extremist group destroyed a number of important monuments [...].
— theartnewspaper.com

The Syrian Directorate-General of Antiquities & Museums published an initial set of photos of the extent of destruction after ISIS troops had been driven out of Palmyra's archaeological sites on March 2, 2017.↑ Roman Theater↑ Tetrapylon↑ Triumphal Arch (previously on... View full entry

The Eiffel Tower is to undergo a €300m, 15-year refurbishment, Paris’s mayor Anne Hidalgo announced on Friday. [...]

The planned refurbishment is intended to bolster the French capital’s bids to host another World’s Fair in 2025 and, before that, the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic games [...].

The project will be managed by the tower’s operator, the Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel, a public service company wholly owned by the City Council.
— theartnewspaper.com

The 15-year refurbishment of this most-visited monument anywhere in the world (the 127-year-old wrought iron structure has been operating at its maximum capacity of about 7 million visitors since 2003, according to Wikipedia) will take more than a few buckets of paint and also comprises the... View full entry

ISIS forces have retaken the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria, according to Syrian government media, the ISIS media wing and a human rights monitor. [...]

ISIS first seized control of Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in May 2015. Syrian government forces recaptured it in March this year. [...]

ISIS demolished many of the city's ancient treasures, including the 1,800-year-old Arch of Triumph and the nearly 2,000-year-old Temple of Baalshamin, as well as the Temple of Bel.
— CNN

Palmyra previously in the Archinect news:Palmyra after ISIS: a first look at the level of destructionISIS militants have reportedly blown up Palmyra's Arch of TriumphISIS attacks second ancient Palmyra temple this monthISIS blows up 2,000-year-old Baalshamin temple in PalmyraISIS beheads leading... View full entry

One of the tallest surviving structures from the ancient world has been totally destroyed by Isil extremists at Nimrud, the former capital of Assyria, which was captured by Iraqi government forces on 13 November. The ziggurat, which was nearly 2,900 years old, was obliterated. Only the largest Egyptian pyramids are higher than Middle Eastern ziggurats and central American step pyramids.

In the first case of its kind, the Islamic extremist Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi has today (22 August), pleaded guilty to war crimes for destroying historic monuments in the ancient city of Timbuktu in northern Mali. Al-Mahdi is accused of ordering the razing of nine mausoleums and the 15th-century Sidi Yahia mosque. It is the first time the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has heard a case about the demolition of cultural heritage.
— theartnewspaper.com

Learn more about Timbuktu's outstanding value as a world heritage site on UNESCO's website.Related stories in the Archinect news:Palmyra after ISIS: a first look at the level of destructionDestruction of Iraq’s oldest Christian monastery by ISIS militants went unreported for 16 monthsFear grows... View full entry

For 45 years, Iran's most famous modern monument, the Azadi (Freedom) Tower in Tehran, has been the backdrop to every major news story coming out of the country...Hossein Amanat was a rising star in Iran's architectural scene when, in 1966, he won a national competition to design the monument...Its historical pull, he believes, lies in the tower's evolution as a 'symbol of Iran'...that is both intensely Iranian and Islamic at the same time.
— BBC

More on Archinect:The young woman who designed Tehran's new popular bridgeKhamenei's fight against "un-Islamic" architecture in Iran View full entry